Huntsville State Park
Trails: Chinquapin Trail, Prairie Branch Loop Trail, Dogwood Trail
Last hiked October 15-16, 2022
About Huntsville State Park
Huntsville State Park is located just north of Houston in the East Texas Piney Woods and Sam Houston National Forest. This is a beautiful area with a mix of tall, towering pine trees and hardwood forest. We arrived on Friday night and camped in shelter site #9 for two nights. We had a nice view of Raven Lake and a lovely site that had plenty of room to spread out and enjoy the trees and lake. Our only complaint was that this site was right next to the boat launch and fish cleaning station area, so it tends to be a bit noisy pretty early in the morning. There are six trails of varying length and difficulty to hike here, but we only had time to complete three of them.
Trail: Chinquapin Trail
Trail Type: Hiking & Biking
Distance We Hiked: 7.7 miles
Amount of Time it Took Us: 2 hrs. 50 mins.
Our Elevation Gain: 471 ft.
Park Rating: challenging
Mike & Elaine’s Rating: easy to moderate
Our Notes:
After a filling breakfast of sausage, eggs and hashbrowns out of our Dutch oven, we headed to the Chinquapin Trail, which is 6.9 miles roundtrip and considered challenging according to the park map. There is a parking area for this trail right across the street from the park’s Nature Center. We decided to complete the trail in the clockwise direction. The trail encircles the entire park around Lake Raven, although for the most part you do not follow the shoreline, so you don’t have many views of the lake. It was relatively flat for the most part with a few little climbs in elevation here and there. Most of the trail winds through the pine trees, but there are parts that also travel over marshes as well. There are very nice boardwalks built over these sections, however the recent drought conditions were obvious here as the water was very low. This was a nice hike and it was pretty well marked. It was, however, a very busy day when we hiked it. There were a lot of families with small children taking advantage of the trail system and a few bikers as well. This seems to be a very family friendly park, so if it is seclusion you are looking for, this is probably not the place for you.
At about halfway through the trail, we crossed the historic dam and spillway that was originally constructed by the CCC in the mid-1900’s. There are some great views of the lake from here and it is about as close as you will get to the lake on this trial. At several points along the trail you do have the option to take a cutoff trail and detour to the Triple C Trail, a much longer trail at 8.4 miles total roundtrip that skirts the border of the entire park. We didn’t take this option as it was a bit far for us, and honestly we didn’t think we would see anything differently than what we were seeing on the Chinquapin.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see any wildlife on this hike, and that was probably because of the busyness of the trail on this particular day. The pine trees were pretty, but we didn’t really have any “ah-ha” moments on this hike. However, no hike is a bad hike, so we did enjoy ourselves for the most part. This was not a very difficult hike for us, but the distance and heat on this particular day tired us out enough to head back to our campsite for a nice nap in the hammock and a good dinner over our hot coals as the sun set over the lake in the evening.
Trail: Prairie Branch Loop & Dogwood Trails
Trail Type: Hiking
Distance We Hiked: 2.62 miles
Amount of Time it Took Us: 57 mins.
Our Elevation Gain: 115 ft.
Park Rating: moderate
Mike & Elaine’s Rating: easy
Our Notes:
On Sunday after packing up our campsite, we decided to combine two more trails before heading back to “concrete city.” We started on Prairie Branch Loop, which is a 1.5-mile loop that for the first half follows quite close to Lake Raven’s shoreline. This part of the trail does not allow bikers, so it is a very peaceful and lovely hike with very nice views of the lake. Once you get past this portion and loop back around you are back in mixed pine and hardwood forest, much like what we saw on the Chinquapin the previous day. About a quarter mile before you return to the trailhead, there is an option to take the Dogwood Trail, which we did just to extend the hike a bit longer. This trail by itself is 1.8 miles and is named for the prominent dogwood trees that bloom with white flowers in the spring. Part of this trail does follow next to the road, so it is not overly peaceful. We felt like this was a pretty flat and easy trail and it was ok. Probably our favorite part of hiking this day, however, was along the shoreline, as it provided the most interesting and beautiful, peaceful views, in our opinion.
Overall, Huntsville State Park is a very nice family friendly park with some great family friendly trails, fishing, and kayaking opportunities. We enjoyed ourselves, but it is not one that would be at the top of our list, as we really enjoy more of an isolated feeling when we are camping and hiking, and a bit more of a challenge when hitting the trails. We would recommend it, though, for those families with young kids wanting a nice weekend family get-away from the hustle and bustle of the city, and an opportunity to connect kids with the beauty of nature.
Links to the park and trails below:
https://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/huntsville
https://tpwd.texas.gov/publications/pwdpubs/media/park_maps/pwd_mp_p4505_0044d.pdf